Son of Dracula, 217
South Park, 127
Southern, Terry, 17
Speight, Johnny, 199
Spice Girls: protest for fair hiring practices in, 44
Spikings, Barry, 230
Splunge!, 86, 110, 310
Star Wars, 244, 313
Starr, Ringo, 216–217
Starship Titanic, 210
Steele, Tommy, 15
Stevens, Cat, 188
Stewart, James, 87
Stoppard, Tom, 264
Stratton-Smith, Tony, 183; backing Monty Python and the Holy Grail, 151
Stuart-Clark, Chris, 13
—T—
Tall Blonde Man with One Black Shoe, The, 180
Taubman, Howard: the former sportswriter, 14
Taylor, Ted, 13
Thames Television, 23
That Was the Week That Was, 6
Thompson, Hunter S., 112, 308
Thurber, James, 259
Thurmond, Strom, 250
Till Death Us Do Part, 199
Time Bandits, 255, 270, 273, 303
Time Magazine, 191
Time-Life Television, 183, 189, 191
Titheradge, Peter, 13
Tomiczek, John, 296–297
Tonight Show, The, 187
Took, Barry, 22–25, 27–28, 32, 70; on censorship, 138, 140; on naming The Circus, 25; on origin of Python, 22; on Python’s influence, 315
Tunisia, 238
TV Guide, 191
Two Ronnies, The, 40
—U—
U.S. Comedy Arts Festival, 305–308, 313
Umbrellas of Cherbourg, The, 180
United Artists, 231
Universal Pictures, 20, 285
—V—
Vanderbeck, Stan, 20
Variety, 180
Varsity, 212
Video Arts, 258
—W—
Warner Brothers, 250
We Have Ways of Making You Laugh, 18, 20, 31
Weintraub, Jerry, 188
Weldon, Huw, 135
Weston, Maggie, 67, 73
White, Michael, 13, 152, 178
Wholly Moses, 225
Wide World of Entertainment, 201–202
Widmark, Richard, 20
Wind in the Willows, The, 154, 257
Withnail and I, 270
Wood, Duncan, 134, 137–138
Wrong Box, The, 144
—Y—
Yellowbeard, 102, 256
Copyright
Published by arrangement with the author.
MONTY PYTHON SPEAKS! Copyright © 1999 by David Morgan. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this ebook on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins ebooks.
First Spike Printing 1999.
Reissued in Harper paperback 2005.
* * *
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Monty Python speaks! : John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones, and Michale Palin (and a few of their friends and collaborators) recount an amazing, and silly, thirty-year spree in television and film—in their own words, squire! / [interviewed by] David Morgan.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Monty Python (Comedy troupe) 2. Comedians—Great Britain—
PN2599.5.T54M66 1999
99-20146
791.45’028’092241—dc21
CIP
* * *
ISBN-10: 0-380-80479-4 (pbk.)
ISBN-13: 978-0-380-80479-5 (pbk.)
05 06 07 08 09 QPM 10 9 8 7 6
EPub Edition © MAY 2013 ISBN: 9780062292209
Version 04262013
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A Footlights veteran and director of “Cambridge Circus,” Barclay became a producer at the BBC and later head of comedy at London Weekend Television.
Its members included Neil Innes, Vivian Stanshall, Rodney Slater, Larry Smith, and Roger Ruskin-Spear.
A typical, short-sighted economy move on the part of broadcasters, so that videotape could be reused.
In the “Historical Impersonations” sketch, Cardinal Richelieu impersonates Clark singing “Don’t Sleep in the Subway.”
In a photo-comic by Gilliam for Help! magazine, Cleese portrayed a man who succumbs to his sexual obsession for a Barbie doll.
Timmy Perry and David Croft’s long-running sit-com about the Walmington-On-Sea platoon of the Home Guard.
No doubt an unintentional pun.
A method of releasing muscle tension, focusing on the head, neck, and spine.
Python’s designation for their dowdy women characters, such as Mrs. Ratbag.
The closest to this Welsh squeal as is transcribable.
As of publication date, http://www.pythonline.com
A producer and onetime Head of Comedy.
Not all changes were for potentially offensive material. In the “Penguin on the Television” sketch, Cleese and Chapman (as Pepperpots) mumble the song “The Girl from Ipanema.” In repeats, the soundtrack was changed to a single Pepperpot mumbling “I Dream of Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair.”
Otto was the head of a crack Semitic suicide squad. In a scene cut from the final film, he demonstrates for Brian just how eagerly his troops will kill themselves for their leader.
In fact, Terry Jones points out that recent excavations on preserved skeletons from the period actually reveal very strong, healthy teeth; theoretically this is due to the absence of a processed sugar industry a thousand years ago.
At one time Stratton-Smith also served as manager of Neil Innes’ group, then called the Bonzo Dog Band.
One of White’s earliest theatrical endeavors was bringing the 1963 Cambridge revue “A Clump of Plinths” to the West End, retitled “Cambridge Circus.” Among his film credits are Oh! Calcutta!, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and Nuns on the Run.
The group was to appear at City Center in New York in the spring of 1976.
McKenna also appeared as various guards and centurions in Life of Brian.
An association of daredevils whose exploits include hang-gliding over active volcanoes, skiing downhill while playing a grand piano, and catapulting themselves into the air via bungee cords.
Among their joint credits were Nicolas Roeg’s The Man Who Fell to Earth and Michael Cimino’s The Deer Hunter, which won the Academy Award for Best Picture of 1978.
Produced, coincidentally, by Lord Delfont’s brother, Lew Grade.
At the time Warners was handling distribution of Orion product.
&nbs
p; At the behest of a Presbyterian minister in Irmo, SC, who had spoken with the senator’s wife, Nancy, Strom Thurmond called an attorney for the General Cinema Corporation to say that there was “overwhelming sentiment against the showing of the movie in South Carolina” and suggested that [they] suspend showing it in the state. GCC subsequently canceled its engagements there. Other reports of opposition led to the film’s cancellation in a few other cities, including Baton Rouge, LA, and Charlotte, NC.
A collection of Cleese’s sketches, many of which predate Python, published in 1984.
“There’s everything in this movie,
Everything that fits,
From the meaning of life in the Universe,
To girls with great big tits…”
“Britain’s answer to Marilyn Montroe,” who starred in such films as Man Bait, Good Time Girl, The Unholy Wife, and Berserk!
Computer games including Monty Python’s Complete Waste of Time and The Quest for the Holy Grail used elements from the films and TV programs in absurd ways, such as a Tetris-like block game in which dead bodies had to be piled correctly.